Shirley Ardell Mason

Shirley Ardell Mason (January 25, 1923 – February 26, 1998) was an American psychiatric patient and commercial artist who was reputed to have multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. Her life was purportedly described, with adaptations to protect her anonymity, in 1973 in the book Sybil, subtitled The True Story of a Woman Possessed by 16 Separate Personalities, and two films of the same name were made in 1976 and 2007. Both the book and the films used the name Sybil Isabel Dorsett to protect Mason's identity, though the 2007 remake stated Mason's name at its conclusion.

Biography

Mason was born and raised in Dodge Center, Minnesota, the only child of Walter Mason (a carpenter and architect) and Martha Alice "Mattie" Atkinson. In regard to Mason's mother: "...many people in Dodge Center say Mattie" — "Hattie" in the book — "was bizarre," according to Bettie Borst Christensen, who grew up across the street. "She had a witch-like laugh....She didn't laugh much, but when she did, it was like a screech." Christensen remembers Mason's mother walking around after dark, looking in the neighbors' windows. At one point, Martha Mason was reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia.^[1]

Mason graduated from Dodge Center High School in 1941 and went on to become an art student at Mankato State College, now Minnesota State University, Mankato. In the early 1950s, Mason was a substitute teacher and a student at Columbia University. She had long suffered from blackouts and emotional breakdowns, and finally entered psychotherapy with Cornelia B. Wilbur, a Freudian psychiatrist. Their sessions together are the basis of the book. From 1968-1973, she taught art at Rio Grande College, in Rio Grande, Ohio (now the University of Rio Grande).

Some people in Mason's home town, reading the book, recognized Mason as Sybil. By that time, Mason had severed nearly all ties with her past and was living in West Virginia. She later moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where she lived near Wilbur. She taught art classes at a community college and ran an art gallery out of her home for many years.^[1][2]

Wilbur diagnosed Mason with breast cancer in 1990, and she declined treatment; it later went into remission. The following year Wilbur developed Parkinson's disease and Mason moved into Wilbur's house to take care of her until Wilbur's death in 1992. Mason died of breast cancer approximately six years later, on February 26, 1998.^[1]

Sybil

Flora Rheta Schreiber's non-fiction book Sybil: The True Story of a Woman Possessed by 16 Separate Personalities told a version of Mason's story with names and details changed to protect her anonymity. The book, whose veracity was challenged, e.g., Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan, stated that Mason had multiple personalities as a result of severe child sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, who, Wilbur believed, had schizophrenia.^[3]

The book was made into a highly acclaimed TV movie starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward, in 1976. The TV-movie was remade in 2007 with Tammy Blanchard and Jessica Lange and received positive reviews.

Controversy

Mason's diagnosis has been challenged. Psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel saw Mason for several sessions while Wilbur was on vacation and felt that Wilbur was manipulating Mason into behaving as though she had multiple personalities when she did not. Spiegel suspected Wilbur of having publicized Mason's case for financial gain. According to Spiegel, Wilbur's client was a hysteric but did not show signs of multiple personalities; in fact, he later stated that Mason denied to him that she was "multiple" but claimed that Wilbur wanted her to exhibit other personalities.^[4]

Spiegel confronted Wilbur, who responded that the publisher would not publish the book unless it was what she said it was.^[5]

Spiegel revealed that he possessed audio tapes in which Wilbur tells Mason about some of the other personalities she has already seen in prior sessions. Spiegel believes these tapes are the "smoking gun" proving that Wilbur induced her client to believe she was multiple. However, Spiegel did not make these claims until after Schreiber, Wilbur and Mason were all dead.

In August 1998, psychologist Robert Rieber of John Jay College of Criminal Justice challenged Mason's diagnosis, citing the tapes and claiming she was an "extremely suggestible hysteric". He claimed Wilbur had manipulated Mason in order to secure a book deal.^[6][7]

In a review of Rieber's book Bifurcation of the Self, Mark Lawrence asserts that Schreiber repeatedly distorted the evidence and left out a number of important facts about Mason's case to advance his case against the validity of the diagnosis.^[8]

Debbie Nathan's Sybil Exposed^[9] draws upon an archive of Schreiber's papers stored at John Jay College of Criminal Justice^[10] and other first-hand sources. Nathan claims that Wilbur, Mason, and Schreiber knowingly perpetrated a fraud and describes the purported manipulation of Wilbur by Mason and vice versa and that the case created an "industry" of repressed memory.^[11]

Nathan ascribes Mason's physical and sensory issues to a lifelong case of pernicious anemia, the symptoms of which were mistaken at the time for psychogenic issues. She notes that after Mason was treated with calf's-liver supplements for chronic blood disorders as a child and young woman, her psychological symptoms likewise went into remission for years at a time. Nathan's writing and her research methods have been publicly criticized by Mason's family and by Dr. Patrick Suraci, who was personally acquainted with Shirley Mason. In addition, Suraci claims that Spiegel behaved unethically in withholding tapes which supposedly proved Wilbur had induced Mason to believe she had multiple personalities. Spiegel also claimed to have made films of himself hypnotizing Mason, supposedly proving that Wilbur had "implanted false memories" in her mind, but when Suraci asked to see the films Spiegel said he had lost them.^[12][13] Although Wilbur's papers were destroyed, copies and excerpts within Flora Rheta Schreiber's papers at the Lloyd Sealy Library of John Jay College were unsealed in 1998.^[10]

In 2013, artist-journalist Nancy Preston published After Sybil, a personal memoir which includes facsimile reproductions of Mason's personal letters to her, along with color plates of her paintings. According to Preston, Mason taught art at Ohio's Rio Grande College, where Preston was a student. The two became close friends and corresponded until a few days before Mason's death. In the letters, Mason confirmed that she had had multiple personalities.^[14]

References